Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Biochemistry professor explains why the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is only 14 years

Dr. Gösta Pettersson, Professor Emeritus of biochemistry and specialist in reaction kinetics, further explains why the computer model ["The Bern Model'] used by the IPCC to predict CO2 lifetimes of over 100 years is highly flawed and is strongly contradicted by observations from both atomic bomb testing and atmospheric levels of CO2 [the Keeling Curve]. Dr. Pettersson finds "the IPCC extremely (about tenfold) underestimated both the speed of the final location for the natural disposal of atmospheric carbon dioxide" by natural sinks. The assumption of the "IPCC Bern model that 22% of atmospheric carbon dioxide surplus can never be removed from the air seems quite amateurish considering that the present empirical observations (Fig. 1) confirms that at least 95% of the bomb test excess of 14C-carbon dioxide has been removed "already" after 50 years."

"Paper 2 shows the bomb curve estimated value of the CO2 relaxation time (14 years) and concludes that the IPCC-backed climate models overestimate future anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by a factor of 3-15 depending on the emissions scenario and the considered time period. This means that emissions of fossil carbon dioxide can not be expected to lead to a politically unacceptable global warming (two degree target), even according to the IPCC's worst case discharge scenarios, the longest present experimentally determined estimate of the relaxation time, and the alarmist climate models' own estimates of the greenhouse effect strength."

"The IPCC has been scientifically untenable reasons turned a blind eye to the present very extensive and entirely consistent experimental results concerning CO2 relaxation and preferred to base their assessments on a mathematical model that lacks empirical support, and even contrary to the observations made."Bomb Test curve - nature's simple answers to complex relationships

Figure 1. Time course (black data points) for the relaxation of the excess of 14C-carbon dioxide as the above-ground nuclear tests showed, indicating a much shorter atmospheric lifetime of CO2 than assumed by the IPCC [blue line of the Bern Model].

Peter Stilbs and Pehr Björnbom have in TCS messages noticed my book False alarm and my conclusion that bomb test curve (figure above) falsifies the underpinning for climate models projections of future carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures. The inserts gave rise to a rather intense debate. Many commentators stressed the complexity of the carbon cycle, and hinted that I underestimated this by basing my conclusion solely on bomb test curve. "There's more to it" was one comment. "Gösta makes it too easy for themselves," was another.

I can understand the doubt. Kolcykelproblematiken a whole is very complex. Hydrosphere uptake of carbon dioxide is dependent on wind, temperature, rainfall, etc. according to little-understood relationship (eg. Revelle effect). The spread of the absorbed carbon dioxide from the surface waters to deeper water layers can be made according to several different mechanisms and span time scales from the second level to centuries. The yield of carbon dioxide between the air and the biosphere is likewise by a variety of processes of widely different time scales. Are you interested in what happens to the carbon value after it has been transferred from the air to the outdoors in general, then you can be served by kolcykelmodeller who, like Bern model looking observe and describe the effects of the present heterogeneities and other mechanistic complications in the total carbon dioxide exchange .

The situation is completely different if you have the limited objective of ascertaining the extent to which anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions contribute to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (and hence an increase in the greenhouse effect). Then you only need to know the kinetics of an atmospheric CO2 relaxation (equilibration), ie. knowing how quickly and to what extent an excess of carbon dioxide removed from the air. Bomb Test curve provides just such information to more than 95% of the relaxation of the excess pulse of 14C-labeled carbon dioxide as the above-ground nuclear tests resulted. The graph shows the net result of the disparate events that helped to remove the anthropogenic input excess C14 emissions by transferring it from the air to the outdoors in general. The curve represents the empirically determined response that nature has given us the carbon cycle all complex relationships.

C14 carbon is carbon dioxide. The relaxation processes which reduced the excess air of C14 emissions are identical to those that continuously reduces such excess carbon dioxide as the atmosphere is supplied by human activities such as the use of fossil fuels, land use change and cement production. Because of the kinetic kolisotopeffekternas small size can be also as a good approximation to assume that C14 carbon disposed with the same speed and in the same degree as carbon dioxide with different isotope composition.

These simple facts provide bomb test curve an outstanding informative weight. It tells us that the air at the end of X should contain about 91% of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in the year X-1, approximately 85% of emissions in the year X-2, and so on back in time. Based on available historical data for the amount of emissions since the industrial revolution, one can on the basis of the appearance of the bomb curve calculate how much human activities contributed to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration up to an arbitrary subsequent years. Likewise, the curve us exactly the information we need to analogously calculate the likely future emissions of fossil carbon dioxide will contribute to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide future.

So what these climatological fundamental calculations is concerned, it is not me who makes it too easy for me, but others that make it too difficult for them. One does not know why the bomb test curve looks the way it does. Suffice it to say how it looks and to base their calculations on this look. One need not resort to models that consider what happens to the carbon dioxide after it entered into the biosphere and hydrosphere. It is a mathematical model that provides an acceptable description of the bomb test curve, nature's answer to the critical question of how quickly and to what extent the excess carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere.

And in that respect, it is clear from Figure 1 that the [IPCC] Bern model triphasic description of curve (blue graph) is substandard and unfit for the calculation. Statistical regression analysis shows that bomb test curve is best described as enfasiskt exponential (red graph), with a relaxation time in many consistent experimental studies found to be in the order of ten years rather than the hundred years that the IPCC states on the basis of the Bern model. The bomb curveappearance gives us ample information to enable us to conclude that the IPCC extremely severely (about tenfold) underestimated both the speed of the final location for the natural disposal of atmospheric carbon dioxide excess.

Why bomb test curve looks like it does is another question of mechanistic nature.The answer may, however, also a fair indication of the kinetic analysis of the curve. The IPCC states that the relaxation of atmospheric carbon dioxide excess is highly controlled by carbon dioxide slow transport from the ocean surface to the deep sea. I have commented on this by saying that I only need to glance at the bomb test curve to realize that the IPCC's claim is incorrect.

It is needed is not more than a glance to see that bomb test curve goes towards a final value which is close to zero and certainly less than 0:05. The information is all I need to be able to classify the kinetics disposal of excess air of carbon dioxide as a virtually irreversible process. Thus, the process must essentially have the same kinetic behavior as a completely irreversible process, ie. be more than 95% controlled by the air concentration of carbon dioxide according to law of mass action. There is not even a theoretical possibility that the slow processes in the ocean can influence more than, at most, 5% of the relaxation process.

This insight is likely only to specialists with good knowledge of the relaxation kinetics theory and practice. But for non-specialists, there is an easy alternative way to arrive at the same conclusion, since bomb test curve is found to follow an exponential progression.

Exponential decay of an excess concentration may be namely for purely mathematical reasons, then, and only then, the corresponding reaction rate is proportional to the concentration variable in question. The observation that bomb test excess of 14C-carbon dioxide removal in an exponential progression tells us, then, that the removal occurred at a speed which was proportional to the air concentration of the C14-labeled carbon dioxide. The observed part (95%) of the relaxation process has therefore been guided by the air content of C14-carbon dioxide, in accordance with the law of mass action applied to a completely irreversible process. Slow processes in the ocean can at most affect the removal of the remaining 5% of the excess carbon dioxide, ie. the final stage of the relaxation process that we have not yet had the opportunity to observe.

The conclusion that airborne carbon surplus raised virtually irreversible by natural sinks, one might also benefit from the IPCC, the data presented for the equilibrium distribution of carbon between the atmosphere (1.5%), and nature in general (98.5%). Bomb Sample curve only confirms that nature behaves as it theoretically might expect in such a case. In addition to consolidating the Uppsjön of published experimental measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide retention (which invariably fall within the range 2-14 years) in principle is fully acceptable as estimates of carbon dioxide relaxation. IPCC lacks any any theoretical justification for its idiot explanation of climatic pioneers Bolin, Revelle, Suess et al. the ground that they measured the wrong kind of retention, one that is not relevant to the relaxation of excess carbon dioxide.

A scientific presentation of my kinetic analysis of the bomb test curve can be found in Paper 1 on the English-language website False alarm . There is also the scientific arguments showing that Bern model is in conflict with the present empirical data. From a theoretical aspect, Bern model grossest error prescribing the equilibrium distribution of carbon between air and nature in general is 22%: 78% ie. that the model makes natural uptake of carbon dioxide around 15 times reversiblare than what we know it is under the IPCC kolcykeldata.

Bern model's designers actually suggest that preindustrial atmospheric equilibrium concentration of carbon dioxide was about 5000 ppm, but apparently lack sufficient kinetic skills to realize that their model has this absurd consequence. Neither have the skills enough to realize that the reaction system equilibrium constants are fixed by the thermodynamic relations and not with a custom size in the construction of a kinetic model. Bern model of the IPCC accepted and utilized instruction to 22% of atmospheric carbon dioxide surplus can never be removed from the air seems quite amateurish considering that the present empirical observations (Fig. 1) confirms that at least 95% of the bomb test excess of 14C-carbon dioxide has been removed "already" after 50 years.

Paper 2 on the above website shows that in order it from the bomb cvurve estimated value of the relaxation time (14 years) concludes that the IPCC-backed climate models overestimate future anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by a factor of 3-15 depending on the emissions scenario and the considered time period. This means that emissions of fossil carbon dioxide can not be expected to lead to a politically unacceptable global warming (two degree target), even according to the IPCC's worst case discharge scenarios, the longest present experimentally determined estimate of the relaxation time, and the alarmist climate models' own estimates of the greenhouse effect strength.

The IPCC has been scientifically untenable reasons turned a blind eye to the present very extensive and entirely consistent experimental results concerning CO2 relaxation and preferred to base their assessments on a mathematical model that lacks empirical support, and even contrary to the observations made. How can that be? My own answer to this question, I came to when I found that the corresponding section in the IPCC reports had Bern model two constructors as head writer (Siegenthaler in the first report and Joos in the subsequent three reports). The probability should be zero to those IPCC experts would realize his model shortcomings and persuade annul it. Something I with different slant cover in Chapter 15:5 - 6) of my book False alarm.

19 comments:

14CO2 does not behave exactly as 12CO2 molecules. If you put 14CO2 into the atmosphere without (significantly) altering total pCO2 in an otherwise equilibrated ocean/atmosphere system, then the p14CO2 will initially be much higher in the air than in the water, and this gradient will then drive 14CO2 into the water at a higher rate compared the the zero net flux experience by the total equilibrated CO2. This results in a decline of 14CO2 in the air that would be interpreted by Prof. Pettersson's logic as a significant net flux of CO2 from air into the ocean, when in fact essentially zero net flux has occurred in total CO2. Another way to look at this is that the 14CO2 initially put into the air is being continually diluted by ocean/air exchange, thus diluting and decreasing the initial 14CO2 while no net change in total air or ocean CO2 concentration has occurred. Unfortunately, removal of excess CO2 from air is a very slow, but that does not mean that we can't accelerate this process:http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6140/1522.2.full

The total flux of CO2 is irrelevant to the calculation of the lifetime of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere. As Petterrson shows, the bomb curve kinetics are all you need to demonstrate the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere. No flawed computer models are necessary, and the silly mass balance argument has been repeatedly debunked, because it is a single equation with at least 3 unknowns, unsolvable for a unique solution.

This past spring all sixty tomato plants that I started inside and were doing well died when I put them outside. After doing some reading on several university AG sites I discovered that non-GM tomatoes grow better at 500 ppm CO2 than at the <400 ppm ambient levels. Further investigation of greenhouse practices revealed that many have been adding CO2 using bottled gas or burning natural gas for years.

All of these "climate scientists" should be talking to farmers before they publish anything.

MS, as Greg Rau already said, the decay of 14CO2 is NOT the same as for 12CO2.In general all isotopes of CO2 behave similar, thus 14CO2 more or less follows the fate of 12CO2. That is the case for exchanges with the biosphere and the ocean surface, which are relative fast (seasonal up to a few years). But the exchange with the deep oceans is of a different order: What goes into the deep oceans is the isotopic composition of today. What comes out of the oceans is the composition of some 1,000 years ago...

Here a graph of the (estimated) CO2 fluxes and the 14CO2 concentration in the different fluxes around 1960, the peak bomb spike year where 14CO2 concentration is set to 100%. The pre-bomb equilibrium was around 50% of the bomb spike:http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/14co2_distri_1960.jpgWhat one can see is that while the ocean surfaces and vegetation are in rapid equilibrium with the atmosphere, the deep oceans return about 98% of all 12CO2, but less than 45% of 14CO2 which was going into the deep oceans. Thus the decay of a 14CO2 excess peak is much faster than of a 12CO2 excess peak. About three times faster.Here the same graph for the year 2000:http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/14co2_distri_2000.jpg

Something similar happens to the 13C depleted human emissions: the drop in d13C is about 1/3rd of what may be expected if there was no "thinning" by the deep oceans exchanges. This can be used to estimate the deep ocean exchanges:http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/deep_ocean_air_zero.jpg

Thus the excess 13CO2 decay is three times faster than the excess 12CO2 decay. The 14CO2 decay is similar faster.

The real decay time of excess 12CO2 is a measured drop of ~4 GtC/year for an excess CO2 pressure in the atmosphere of ~210 GtC above equilibrium. That gives an e-fold time of 210/4=52.5 years. Or a half-life time of ~40 years.

Ferdinand: I find your graphs based upon theoretical assumptions about mass balance that, unfortunately, can't be solved for unique solutions.

Comment at WUWT that may be of interest:

fhhaynie says:September 26, 2013 at 7:42 am

“According to New Scientist, the forthcoming IPCC report will say, “CO2-induced warming is projected to remain approximately constant for many centuries following a complete cessation of emission. A large fraction of climate change is thus irreversible on a human timescale, except if net anthropogenic CO2 emissions were strongly negative over a sustained period.”

If that is true, it proves that anthropogenic emissions are a minor contribution to the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. At present, natural sinks are sucking up at least 95% of all emmisions (both natural and anthropogenic) and anthropogenic emmisions contribute only about 5% of total emissions.

We may have already reached our maximum global temperature, If atmospheric CO2 concentration follows temperature, we should expect a maximum CO2 within the next thirty years.

Their models do not agree with reality. They fail with respect to the anthropogenic contribution to CO2 accumulation as well as to warming sensitivity to CO2.

No matter the real fluxes, what I said about the difference in behavier between 14CO2 and 12CO2 still holds.The fluxes don't matter for the ocean's surface and vegetation, as much what is absorbed is coming back in the next season, for 14CO2 and 12CO2 alike.But it hugely matters for the deep ocean exchanges: if the real fluxes were twice what I estimated, then the decay rate of 14CO2 (and 13CO2) would speed up with a factor 2, making the difference with 12CO2 even larger.

I had a lot of discussions with Fred Haynie. He is one of many who think that curve fitting explains everything, including the increase and decrease of CO2 in the atmosphere. But temperature explains most of the variability around the upgoing trend of CO2, not the trend itself.He is completely wrong about the human contribution to the trend: most of natural CO2 is simply cycling in and out over the seasons (and between the equator and the poles and back via the deep oceans), while the human contribution is one-way addition.

Not that I agree with the IPCC either: while there are constraints in the fastest sinks for CO2 (vegetation growth and decay over the seasons, ocean surfaces), there are no limits in sight for the deep oceans and more permanent storage in soils by vegetation debris.Thus the fixed remainder of CO2 in the atmosphere according to the Bern model may be right for extreme quantities of fuel burning, but not in the foreseeable future...

Ferdinand Engelbeen; you either believe the data or you don’t. The sequestration of 14C is essentially first order and the atmospheric 14C is being exchanged with and diluted by a reservoir a least 20 times larger.

The plot shows, the half life is unchanged across the 6 decades.

Now you are free to believe whatever mechanism you like, you can invoke magic or authority or the ‘Revelle buffering’; however, you are quite simply wrong, and you are wrong because your description does not match reality.

You are incapable of looking at the data and accepting what is shows in terms of kinetics and mass action.

I don't think we differ so much in the basics: 14CO2 is removed in a much larger reservoir. We differ in opinion about the mechanism involved:

Bomb spike 14CO2 in 1960 was already distributed over the fast reacting reservoirs: ocean surface and vegetation. These doen't play much role in the sink rate of 14CO2 after 1960.

Remains the deep oceans. Your idea is that these have a relative huge exchange with the atmosphere and redistribute the 14CO2 over the two reservoirs. My idea is that the exchange rate is rather modest, but that the return rate of 14CO2 is less than halve the peak bomb spike for the next ~1000 years. The net effect in both cases is exactly the same.My idea is based on the observed decay of 13CO2 in the atmosphere, which is caused by burning 13C depleted fossil fuel. But the observation shows only 1/3rd of the drop in δ13C as can be expected if there was no dilution by the deep ocean exchanges:http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/deep_ocean_air_zero.jpg

Something similar happens with 14CO2. That makes that the dcay rate of a 13CO2 spike or 14CO2 spike doesn't tell us what the decay rate is of a 12CO2 spike...

Bob Armstrong says:December 13, 2013 at 9:53 amI find all this detailed analysis interesting , but I’m with the group who just took one look at the jaggies in the Mauna Loa data and immediately eyeballed that the half life of CO2 could not be more than a couple of decades and thus claims in terms of centuries or millennia were inexcusable nonscience . Unless there were large nonuniformities in CO2 concentration which happened to cross Mauna Loa seasonally , and it’s been commented here that CO2 is in fact well mixed , the seasonal relaxation must be following a , not surprisingly , substantial seasonal hemispheric variation in production .

Just grabbing the first jaggy in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/04/06/co2-monthly-mean-at-mauna-loa-leveling-off/ , I get a variation of about 1.8% in half a year . Since CO2 production is still far from zero even in the Northern Winter , rounding to 0.98 , we find that declines to 0.50 in about 34 cycles , or 17 years . That’s close enough to wonder how any paper claiming half-lives in centuries could be published anywhere rather than be instantly ridiculed to the ash heap even by science journalists .

The Bern model completely ignores the ocean biological mechanism that enable massive amounts of the CO2 to moved from the surface ocean to the deep ocean.

The Bern model and the IPCC ignore the massive amount CH4 that is bubbling up from the ocean flow and in turn that is converted to pCO2 in by micro bacterial action. The IPCC assumes the only new CO2 input to the atmosphere is from volcanic activity and humans which is absurd. There is massive amounts of CH4 released from the ocean floor and the majority of that CH4 is converted to pCO2 by micro bacterial action. The CO2 input from natural sources is almost two orders of magnitude greater than volcanic CO2 source estimate.

Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2: on the construction of the “Greenhouse Effect Global Warming” dogma. By Tom V. Segalstadhttp://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.pdf

The natural exchange of CO2 between ocean, biomass on land and the atmosphere is very large. In only four to five years all the CO2 in the atmosphere has been recycled through the oceans and the biomass system. The annual anthropogenic human production of CO2 is neutralized by nature in as little as 12 days. Recent studies of the solar forcing, changes in cosmic radiation and its role in cloud formations explain the global warming that has taken place since 1910.------http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/b086687054075135/

It is commonly assumed (e.g. by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; IPCC) that a part of the emitted carbon dioxide will stay in the atmosphere and, therefore, large emission rate of carbon dioxide should cause large increase rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide. High temperature should also increase the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration due to lowered solubility of carbon dioxide in the backmixed ocean surface water. However, using two-dimensional regression analysis, the increase rate could not be explained by the emissions because temperature was the dominating parameter that controlled the increase rate. The fraction of the emissions that remained in the atmosphere—or the airborne fraction—decreased significantly despite global warming.